Lighting systems for research, entertainment, commercial, and residential use are desired that can control the time variation of the spectrum and spatial distribution of light in an illuminated environment. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. US 2009/0323321 A1, entitled “Authoring, Recording, and Replication of Lighting,” which is hereby incorporated by reference, describes some examples of the use of lighting systems including one or more luminaires where each luminaire is capable of producing light with an adjustable spectral distribution. In one configuration, a luminaire contains multiple types of light sources, e.g., multiple types of light emitting diodes, with each type producing a different spectral distribution, and the relative intensities of the different types of light sources in the luminaire are adjustable to control the spectrum of the combined output from the luminaire. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. US 2009/0323321 A1 further describes that the combined output spectrum from a lighting system can mimic recorded or authored lighting scenarios that may include time or spatial variations in the spectrum or intensity of lighting. To provide complex lighting scenarios, luminaire systems and control methods are desired that enable a luminaire to reproduce a desired time variation in intensity or spectrum of lighting output from that luminaire and that enable multiple luminaires to operate in a coordinated fashion to control time or spatial variations in the intensity and spectrum in an illuminated environment.